England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson called on the international soccer authorities to preserve the health of the world "superstar" footballers for major tournaments.

Eriksson said that he has been saddened by the below-par performances of some of the world's best players and wants action to be taken to reverse that trend by world body FIFA and its European counterpart UEFA to save international football.

"It's a little bit sad that when you go to a World Cup or the European Championship, and I am not just talking about England here, but in general, you have too many superstars who are not performing as they should do," Eriksson said.

"If I were a director of either FIFA or UEFA I would sit down and think about it because it is not good for football because when it is a World Cup or a Euro I do not think it is fair on the public around world," he told reporters before England's friendly against Ukraine in Newcastle on Wednesday.

"What do they want to see? They want to see a Zinedine Zidane 100 percent fit, they want to see a (Francesco) Totti 100 percent fit, they want to see a (David) Beckham 100 percent fit. They want to see the superstars a lot but in Japan and Portugal we did not see that.

"That does not happen because in the big football countries there is a huge amount of football and in some countries there are no breaks. That is not only for England, it's most of the big footballing countries.

"And in the big football countries there is a maximum of three weeks before the international tournaments start," Eriksson said.

"I am not trying to defend myself but if that's not changed in the future it will always be like that because fitness is extremely important when you take part in the big tournaments."

Eriksson also said Beckham will continue taking penalties for England despite the fact the team's captain has missed his last three, including the Euro 2004 quarter-final shootout defeat to hosts Portugal in June.

"He will continue taking penalties for us, at least for now," Eriksson said.

"Hopefully he will score the next one but, of course, we will take it game by game because it's always like that. But I think that David has been unlucky, but not with his right foot, his left foot."

Eriksson was referring to the fact that Beckham's left, supporting foot slipped as he blasted his spot kick over the bar in the Lisbon match.

The England captain also broke a bone in the same foot before the 2002 World Cup and struggled to regain fitness in time for the tournament.